-Livemint.com Greater fiscal autonomy has not yet translated into higher spending on nutrition by states Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi once said, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” Sadly, hunger and undernutrition continue to plague our country. India’s record in addressing undernutrition is abysmal. With a stunting rate of 38.4%, India accounts for about a third of the world’s stunted...
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Lucas Chancel, economist working on inequality, interviewed by Sanjay Vijayakumar (The Hindu)
-The Hindu The top 1% of earners captured less than 21% of total income in the late 1930s, before dropping to 6% in the early 1980s and rising to 22% today, says renowned economist Lucas Chancel According to a research paper by renowned economists Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel, income inequality in India is at its highest level since 1922, the year the Income Tax Act was passed. In December, they will...
More »Central panel says states do not need to hike NREG pay to match minimum wage -Shalini Nair
-The Indian Express A report, prepared by a Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) committee states that wages under the rural employment guarantee scheme were last aligned to minimum wages in 2009, and that “there is no compelling reason to align MGNREGA and states minimum wages again”. New Delhi: THE PANEL for revision of wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has recommended in its final report that there...
More »Farm crisis: Landless may be better off, but landed are worse off; here is what you should know of rural distress puzzle -Pranjul Bhandari
-The Financial Express The state of India’s rural economy is puzzling. There is enough evidence to support both opposing statements: one, that the rural economy has improved, and two, that the rural economy is in the doldrums. Some macro indicators have improved, though. The rural unemployment rate has been falling, while rural wages have been rising, particularly on a real basis. Alongside, indicators such as two-wheeler sales and consumer non-durables production...
More »Small Farmers of Latur, of 'Water Train' Infamy, Doubt New Loan-Waiver Scheme Will Help -Nidhi Jamwal
-TheWire.in The Maharashtra government’s Rs 34,000-crore farm loan waiver may not provide much relief to small and marginal farmers in Marathwada, who are caught in the debt trap of private moneylenders. Latur: Venkat Balbim Bhise, a farmer who owns three acres of land in Bisewagholi village, in Maharashtra’s Latur district, is in his early thirties. But anger bordering on fatalism is writ large over his weary face. Venkat owes almost Rs 3.5...
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